How do I convert from BLOB to TEXT in MySQL?

Admin 1
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I have a whole lot of records where text has been stored in a blob in MySQL. For ease of handling I'd like to change the format in the database to TEXT... Any ideas how easily to make the change so as not to interrupt the data - I guess it will need to be encoded properly?

blobs mysql sql
10 Answers

Here's an example of a person who wants to convert a blob to char(1000) with UTF-8 encoding:

CAST(a.ar_options AS CHAR(10000) CHARACTER SET utf8)

This is his answer. There is probably much more you can read about CAST right here. I hope it helps some.

211lafur_Waage_224590

If you are using MYSQL-WORKBENCH, then you can select blob column normally and right click on column and click open value in editor. refer screenshot:

screenshot

user_60970740

None of these answers worked for me. When converting to UTF8, when the encoder encounters a set of bytes it can't convert to UTF8 it will result in a ? substitution which results in data loss. You need to use UTF16:

SELECT
    blobfield,
    CONVERT(blobfield USING utf16),
    CONVERT(CONVERT(blobfield USING utf16), BINARY),
    CAST(blobfield  AS CHAR(10000) CHARACTER SET utf16),
    CAST(CAST(blobfield  AS CHAR(10000) CHARACTER SET utf16) AS BINARY)

You can inspect the binary values in MySQL Workbench. Right click on the field -> Open Value in Viewer-> Binary. When converted back to BINARY the binary values should be the same as the original.

Alternatively, you can just use base-64 which was made for this purpose:

SELECT
    blobfield,
    TO_BASE64(blobfield),
    FROM_BASE64(TO_BASE64(blobfield))
user_11570200

phpMyAdmin screenshot Using phpMyAdmin you can also set the options to show BLOB content and show complete text.

user_4520730

I had the same issue with my MariaDB records. It was solved (by my colleague) using

select
uncompress(blobfield)
from table
user_43943550 
SELECCT TO_BASE64(blobfield)  
FROM the Table

worked for me.

The CAST(blobfield AS CHAR(10000) CHARACTER SET utf8) and CAST(blobfield AS CHAR(10000) CHARACTER SET utf16) did not show me the text value I wanted to get.

user_75428990
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